I'll Be Here All Week

If you sell a car knowing there are things wrong with it but neglect to mention those things or, worse, lie and say those things are, in fact, just fine, you've committed fraud. That's illegal, but even if it weren't, it reveals a lot about what kind of person you are.

Why is it, if you fraudulently sell a car, you're a jerk that can't get invited to dinner, but if you're a president who fraudulently sold a war we pray and thank God for you any way we can?

Maybe a better question is: why do Christians chase after assholes so much?

Dial Tone

So I'm gone forever and when I show up it's just to lazily reference something that is itself a reference to something snarky. I feel like the 14th season Simpsons.



Opie's argument sounds very much like the legal gymnastics Alberto Gonzales [sic] uses.

Originally via BOING

It Could Always Be Worse

Did this really happen?

If it did, is it as bad as it might be?

Well if it is, chase it down with this:

What Could Be Better?

Beckham said: "This week Real asked me to make a decision regarding their offer to extend my contract.

"After considering several options to stay in Madrid or join other major British and European teams, I have decided to join LA Galaxy."

BBC News

This is sure to seem like good news to American fans of soccer and hot guys. Yet...

I'm not one who is afraid to note when a hot guy is really hot, so considering the high bar for hotness in the football world, I don't think Beckham is all that hot. Qweenbeen is a Rio Ferdinand fan. I hate to say I don't see it, since it might reflect poorly on how hot I might be. I prefer a softer, boyish, Cristiano Ronaldo look myself.

Nonetheless, Beckham's a'comin. He may be just slow and increasingly inconsistent enough for MLS but I guess his real appeal lies in his hotness.

I don't think David Beckham is bad, only that he was better. And his value for the sport in America probably has more to do with sexy than soccer.

Still, it could be great news for MLS- if other Americans think he's hotter than I do, and his hotness can overcome how much Americans hate soccer because we didn't invent it. Maybe Beckham and his wife together are hot enough to overcome our general contempt for the world's game. Maybe the kind of attention we usually give heiresses and celebrity baby-doings is the kind of attention MLS needs. Good for MLS... maybe.

And maybe good for the Beckhams. He'll get to watch his Los Angeles academy more closely and with Posh here, maybe she'll become quite the actress. Maybe Patrick Stewart can get his screenplay made.

Hooray For Everything
River Euphrates- Pixies
Respect- Otis Redding
After The Garden- Neil Young
I'm Amazed- Pixies
Nuguns- System of a Down
Spunky- Eels

Words Mean This, Words Mean That

I'm guessing there will be a lot of this tonight:
the stakes
sustain itself
defend itself
freedom, liberty, democracy
brave men and women
sacrifice
global war on terror
forward
September 11th

How MY PRESIDENT has any credibility with anyone right now stretches the meanings of faith and loyalty to the point of offense.

More juvenile skybalon would suggest a drinking game using the above words in MY PRESIDENT's speech tonight. But this is serious and that hardly seems appropriate. In fact to show you how serious this is- when any of those words are used, one of these puppies will be yelled at.

2006 Worsts, Mosts, and Bests

Like every other lazy pretentious slob that imagines their opinions are more than projected insecurities and the barely veiled envy of other's talents, ambition, and willingness to even try, I offer my assessment of 2006's Bests, Worsts, and Mosts.

Most Depressing Day Because My Dog Died and I was Supposed to be Enjoying a Romantic Weekend in Napa With QweenBeen:
October 6th.

Most Frustratingly Horrible Production That Made Me Question the Possibility of Human Solidarity
Citrus College's Christmas Is.... That people were actually laughing at this and enjoying themselves explains why Entertainment Weekly exists and why every TV show I love seems to be cancelled and replaced with a game show that requires no more sense than a Magic 8 Ball has.

Worst Parents That Makes Me Wonder What The Hell is Wrong With Me That God Won't Let Me Have Kids of 2006
Britney Spears and K-Fed.

Runners Up for Worst Parents That Make Me Wonder What The Hell Is Wrong With Me That God Won't Let Me Have Kids
The people that actually took their children to so see Christmas Is... implying this is something anyone should appreciate.

Even Though It Was Released in 2005, The Best Album of 2006 Because That's When I Heard It
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Self-Titled Album. In fact I can't think of an album released in 2006 that's better than this so even if I had heard it when it first came out it would still rock too well to lose it's position. Man this band rules so I'm giving it Best Album of Eternity after Doolittle by the Pixies.

Best Show I'm Watching Clips of On YouTube Because I Have Only Basic Cable of 2006
Extras

Most Mood Affecting Song of 2006
Life On Mars? by David Bowie.

Best Experience For Understanding How Someone Would Not Want to Leave an Absolutely Hopeless Situation One Should Not Have Volunteered to Enter Into In The First Place Therefore Understanding Why MY PRESIDENT Can Not Ever Bring Himself to Leave Iraq
Spending 48+ hours waiting in a Culver City sound stage waiting to tape for 1 vs. 100 and signing up to come back.

Worst Teacher I Remembered in 2006
My Fourth Grade Teacher- Good grief, why would someone who hates kids so much be a teacher?

Most Hilarious Movie of 2006
That Borat Movie.

Most Anticipated Catchphrase Sure to Become Annoying That Failed to Materialize of 2006
"Very Nice" a la Borat.

Most Encouraging Moment That People Were Perhaps Collectively Better Than I Thought of 2006
I didn't hear everyone saying, "Very Nice" a la Borat.

Most Eye-Opening Moment to How Removed I Am From Fratty Boy Culture Memes of 2006
Realizing people were actually saying "Very Nice" a la Borat.

Best iTunes Party Shuffle Two Song Sequence of 2006
A Commercial- Dead Kennedys --> There Is A Light That Never Goes Out- The Smiths

Best Literary Exchange That Tells It Like It Is: Alcoholism Is Funny
"Did you know her?"
"Yes. How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?"
"What was she like?"
"Not bad," I said. "She wasn't bad-looking and she had a lot of sense, and a lot of nerve - and it took both to live with that guy."
"She lived with him?"
"Yes. I want a drink, please. That is, it was like that when I knew them."
"Why don't you have some breakfast first? Was she in love with him or was it just business?"
"I don't know. It's too early for breakfast."
I'm about 70 years late on this one but I can't think of anything that encourages me more to have a Martini with a breakfast burrito.

Most Tempting Alternative Career I Contemplated When School Work Started to Overwhelm Me of 2006
Street Musician

Most Popular Self Prescribed Medications in The Skybalon Household of 2006
TV, Leftovers, Rum and Cokes, Puppies, and Blogging

And other stuff...

...re We Came In?

So 2006 began with this. I'm narcissistic enough to want to go back through my posts and see how this was an anchor for the year's posts and then see what should be my first post for 2007. I'm narcissistic, but also lazy so don't want to do the work of reading 2006's posts and see if there really is some sort of tone to 2007's oeuvre. To be honest, I would say there isn't... ever. But for the sake of this post we'll say there is and that the tone suggested by 2006's first post made 2006 a mopey, picturesque, navel-gazey, baby rankling at authority year.

That means the tone for 07, set by this year's first post, will be self-referential, lazy, artificial, circular, and topically comical.

"Oh sure, I see the conceit," you say, "but where's the topically comical?"
Well dig this...

John Mc Cain indicates that he and the AEI are actually compensating for something with their Iraq policy recommendations.

So expect a year of penis jokes.

2007 Does Not Yet Rock
Fashion Nugget- Cake